


Here at the End of All Things

by dizzy



Category: Glee RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Apocafic, Apocalypse, M/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-16
Updated: 2012-06-16
Packaged: 2017-11-07 22:00:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/435913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things were normal, and then they weren't. Apocafic AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Here at the End of All Things

The world ended four months ago and the last place Chris thought he’d spend his not-life was the studio.

Chris is glad there are still people around. No one is happy anymore, not really, but they’re still existing. Still alive when so many people aren’t. Months of sickness, death, violence overwhelming the cities.

He’d lost more than a lot of people. His mother, his father, his sister. He’s finally to the point where he can think of them without throwing up. One morning he’d woken up and realized it wasn’t a cliche or a Hallmark sentiment. They really are in a better place.

Any place but here is a better place.

 

The studio is big, easily defendable, and there are enough of them still sane and able-bodied that they can scrape by. The trailer he’d once bitched about spending so much time in really is his home now.

He doesn’t like to sleep there, though. They like to sleep in groups. Night is dangerous, night is when stupid people get brave. Stupid, desperate people who want food or medicine or weapons.

They’ve got a commissary full of dried goods, a warehouse that they’ve stockpiled things in. They’ve got a water filtration system set up, taking advantage of the creative minds. Chris can’t claim to have helped much, but he tries.

There aren’t that many of the actors left. Communication systems are down, and he wants to think that most of them made it to where they wanted to be. Some of them never heard from family, and that gave them hope.

Chris almost wishes he were one of them. He has the punishment, the weight of knowing.

*

“Colfer,” Darren says, dropping himself onto the ground beside Chris. “Great weather we got here today.”

Chris looks up at the sky. Darren isn’t lying; it really is. “Feel like heading to the beach?”

“Oh yeah, absolutely.” Darren nods, taking a slightly flattened protein bar out of his pocket and tearing it open with his teeth. He breaks it in half and hands half to Chris. “Do you know how to surf?”

Chris angles his head over to look at Darren. “Do I look like someone that has ever voluntarily spent time in the sun?”

Darren laughs. “Well, I do. I’ll teach you.”

“When we go to the beach,” Chris says, and he nods like it’ll really happen, one day.

The bar is chocolate. They’re his favorite.

They’re almost out.

There’s been talk of making another supply run. He wonders who he’d have to bribe to get more of the chocolate bars. Maybe he can volunteer to go with them. He’s got this problem with people not wanting to treat him like an adult, a problem because he doesn’t always mind it, but he has a sense of needing to contribute.

He looks over at Darren, whose eyes are closed, lashes resting against his cheeks. Maybe Darren will want to come, too. Maybe they’ll go by the beach.

*

There’s still music, at least. There’s Darren with his guitar and his scruff stupid wonderful face and he still plays.

Their trailers are right beside each other now. Now, since Darren had moved, taking over the one Lea used to stay in. He’d offered it to Chris because it’s bigger, but Chris doesn’t need the space, and he likes that his is familiar.

Brian likes it, too, and Brian is notoriously hard to please. He hadn’t eaten for two days after Chris had to start feeding him a different kind of food.

“He’s set in his ways,” Darren had set, petting Brian. Brian doesn’t let many people near him like that, but Darren’s been accepted into the fold.

(Like anyone - anything - could turn him away.)

*

“Isn’t it weird, how seasons are changing?” Darren asks.

Chris is jolted out of a half-nap. “What the-”

The end of the world is pretty boring. He takes a lot of naps.

Darren just laughs and flops down onto the bed beside Chris. He’d let himself into the trailer, apparently. “It’s getting cold.

“I know,” Chris says, and he shivers like it had taken Darren saying it to remind him.

It’s getting chilly and he’s glad they aren’t somewhere where they’d have to deal with snow because central heating is a distant memory. He can handle the summer better than he can the winer.

“It feels like that should have stopped. Like - like everything else is at this stand still, but mother nature, man. She just keeps going.”

“What a bitch,” Chris jokes, weakly, still groggy. He rubs at his eyes with one balled up fist. “Did you need something?”

“Just lonely,” Darren says. It’s disarming how honest Darren can be. “That okay?”

“Yeah,” Chris says. He hates how small his voice sounds, how young and high. “Me, too. It’s Hannah’s birthday.”

“Aw, baby. Come here,” Darren says, and it doesn’t even sound patronizing, just sounds like Darren. He turns onto his side and puts his arm around Chris and tugs him in. Chris lets him because he knows better than to think about it too much but being touched feels nice and he knows Darren well enough to know that he’s a tactile person, that he needs this, too. Whatever Darren is or isn’t, this is what they can do for each other.

He presses his face to Darren’s neck and breathes in the scent of him. He smells like clean sweat, like a man. He smells familiar. He is familiar, the most familiar thing to Chris right now.

He doesn’t mean to cry, he really doesn’t, but somehow when he pulls away there’s salty dampness on Darren’s skin that wasn’t there before.

“Sorry,” he mumbles.

Darren just pets his hair and presses a kiss to his forehead. “It’s okay. I’m here.”

“I’m so glad,” Chris says, and lets his arm slide around Darren’s waist.

“Me, too,” Darren whispers and Chris isn’t the only one a little choked up. “We’re in this together, right?”

Chris nods and Darren kisses his forehead again, keeps his mouth pressed there. Chris feels the tightness of Darren’s grip on him and he squeezes back, like they’re both just doing their damnest to prove to themselves that they’ve still ro each other.


End file.
